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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Author(s)
TAN Chee-Beng
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DOI:10.17265/2328-2177/2018.02.001
Affiliation(s)
Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
ABSTRACT
Based
on materials on the localized Chinese overseas, including the Melaka Babas, who
are mostly Malay-speaking Chinese, this article reflects on the use of such
terms as acculturation and assimilation, as well as hybridization and
creolization, in relation to highly localized Chinese. All these concepts are
seen as different ways of describing cultural formation in transcultural
context. In particular, the relevance of using creolization to refer to the
kind of creative process of cultural formation beyond its original usage in the
Caribbean is discussed. This results in the identification of fragmented
creolization as in the case of the Caribbean and a rooted creolization as in
the case of the Babas. The author shall first discuss the issues of
assimilation and integration, followed by hybridization and creolization. This
is followed by the discussion on localization of Chinese overseas and identity.
The concluding section provides some remarks on the concepts reviewed, and three
main categories of acculturated Chinese are identified, namely, Chinese who are
linguistically assimilated but still observe major Chinese traditions, Chinese who
are so acculturated to the mainstream society that they hardly practice Chinese
traditions, and Chinese who are both highly localized and highly mixed
“racially”.
KEYWORDS
acculturation and assimilation, hybridization, creolization, localization and identity, Baba, Chinese overseas
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